Vic's fabulous fifties

Wednesday, 4 March 2009

Today there was a little package in the mail with the 5 CD-box ”Vic’s fabulous fifties”, that my love had ordered for me on my request.

For “De Volkskrant”Vic van der Reijt has written a series of little stories, that were published in ”Vrijplaats”, a little corner in the newspaper with changing content. These little stories are not in the booklet that accompanies the five CD’s, so here are two of my favourite ones:

I have almost all of the 100 songs on the five CD’s. Some as original 45’s, some on LP’s or CD’s. It is not music that I will often listen to. But I love the work that Vic does and what he has to say about it. He plays an important role in popularising music. Many record companies are not very good at that; their back catalogues are mainly gathering dust.
Long time ago I discovered that the sampler LP’s with the music that I love to buy and listen to (like “Desperate Rock’n’roll, Television’s Greatest Hits, Beat at Cinecitta” or “Mondo Hysterico”, just to name a few series), didn’t sell more than a maybe a hundred copies in Holland. I was amazed: how can so little people be interested in such great music? It took me a long time to realise that most people, even those who are interested in music, have little to no knowledge of all the music that has been made before they were born. The music on the CD’s that Vic van der Reijt produces is for many people basically unknown, as strange as this might seem for peole like you and me.
I am interested in what people do with their music collection. Vic has a fascination with ”Best of lists”. The idea that I would have to select the 100 best songs of the fifties, is not very appealing to me. I am very happy that Vic has done that. And he has done it better than I ever could have done it. Vic has made a perfect mix of the obligatory material and songs that are usually overlooked in similar projects. Ray Anthony’s ”Dragnet”, Archie Bleyer’s ”Hernando’s hideaway” and ”Tumbala-lika” by the Barry Sisters are songs that make this 5CD-box worth it’s 20 euro easily. Here is ”De mars van de M-Brigadiers”:

.

Comments:

Rob

2009-03-04 15:23:56

One of the highlights on this cd is the following text (I’m paraphrasing so bear with me) : The 50s happened between 1952 and 1963. And he is so right!

Martin Hartog

2009-04-20 06:38:53

Great set indeed, bought it myself. Do you happen to have all of the Vrijplaats columns by any chance? I’m missing the ones from the first week (5th – 9th of January 2009). Would be over the moon if you could send scans/jpgs of these.